


Assorted Zutara Month Ficlets

by neuxue



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M, Gen, Some angst, Zutara, Zutara Month, rating and warnings vary by chapter, some Ozai, the usual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-16
Updated: 2013-03-16
Packaged: 2017-12-05 12:14:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 6,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/723185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neuxue/pseuds/neuxue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>as the title says: assorted ficlets from Zutara Month</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Fires Make a Perfect View (Day 2: Luminous)

**Author's Note:**

> some of the fics I wrote for Zutara month that either a) are very short, or b) are not necessarily my headcanon, or c) don't stand well on their own as fics. The rest of my Zutara fics will stay as they are, posted independently.

Fire surrounds them, burning higher and brighter than nightmare as the siblings do battle. Katara is transfixed, at first by terror but then, strangely, by the grace and beauty of the most deadly of dances. She has always assumed she and Zuko are opposites, graced with opposing elements either to negate or to balance each other. But now she sees the true opposites in front of her, though they bend the same element. Azula, once cool and precise, lashes out while Zuko’s every move is graceful, powerful, patient; there is no sign of the anger that once ruled him. Orange fire meets blue, and this time the unnatural fire is forced to yield, and its wielder struggles to break Zuko’s calm.  
  
This time his taunts force uncontrolled flares from her fists, not the other way around, and Katara knows that he means to redirect her lightning as he has redirected and deflected her fire. She will be her own undoing. Then Azula’s eyes meet hers and a flash of light splits the world and she hears him screaming.  
  
The cold fire sparks around him and his face lit by lightning is at once the most beautiful and most terrible thing she has ever seen. For a moment he hangs suspended in the air, light and power surrounding him in its luminous glow, and he is magnificent. And then he falls, broken and triumphant, glowing as he fades.  
  
Katara finds that she doesn’t need a comet’s power to be able to join in the dance. Zuko’s heart is still beating, and that is enough to send waves of water to quench waves of fire. Fear gleams in Azula’s eyes as the same realisation strikes them both: she may be a prodigy, a true daughter of fire, but that won’t save her from drowning.  
  
The comet’s power is fearsome, but she rises with the moon and fights to save, and even Agni will unite with Tui and La to preserve rather than destroy. Water is triumphant, but Katara does not register the victory. It is a necessity, the only hope of reaching Zuko before life fades entirely. To Tui she begs for strength. To La she pleads for courage. And for the first time in her life she whispers a desperate prayer to Agni, that for once he favour his forgotten child.  
  
When she reaches him he is still, but this time it is her hands that glow in the water as she tries to persuade fire to reignite, asking water to return what it conquered only moments ago. _Fire is life_ , he told her once, and the soft luminescence that surrounds her hands and works its way through the wound, healing all the while, seems to prove his words.  
  
His golden eyes open, reflecting the last of the warm, flickering flames. He thanks her and she thanks him, and once again they have saved each other. It is not thanks that are owed, except perhaps to the spirits. Katara takes a breath to voice her gratitude to Agni, once her sworn enemy, but then Zuko’s lips meet hers and all thoughts of prayer are forgotten. Instead his fire seems to burn within her as she pulls him close so she can feel his heartbeat and rejoice in the simple fact that he is alive, that she is alive; they are here together and in this moment they burn brighter than any comet.


	2. Look for Me by Moonlight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zuko is overwhelmed by the prospect of rebuilding the world. Katara tries to help. Written for Day 3 of Zutara Month 2012: Potential

She can just make out Zuko’s silhouette by the open window, the Fire Lord bathed in moonlight. There was a time when she may have found this strange, but perhaps he looks to the moon for comfort now, the way she has come to love the sunrise.  
  
From his posture alone she can tell that something is bothering him; his hands grip the railing of the balcony and his shoulders are tense. She crosses the room quietly to stand beside him, drinking in the moonlight.  
  
“What’s wrong?” She asks after a few moments.  
  
“I don’t know how to be Fire Lord,” he says, running a hand through his hair. “It should be Uncle, he knows what to do, he would know how to fix things, but he won’t and now I have to and I don’t know how to be in charge of a nation and – ”  
  
“You care, Zuko. You care about these people, and the rest of the world.”  
  
“But what if that isn’t enough?”  
  
“It will be. I know it is.”  
  
“How can you know that?”  
  
Katara takes a deep breath. “Because I wouldn’t even be alive if you didn’t know how to save the people you care about.”  
  
With the confidence only a full moon can bring, she reaches out to brush the lightning scar on his chest with her fingers. His breath hitches slightly and she moves to pull her hand away, but he catches it in his own. Their eyes meet and she can see the uncertainty in his face, so she slowly moves her hand in his so that their fingers are intertwined. He takes a hesitant step towards her, and she closes the distance between them with no hesitation at all.  
  
Her lips barely brush his, and then she waits, hardly daring to breathe. It is only a second or two before his mouth finds hers again, and his hands reach up to tangle in her hair as she holds him close, one hand cupping his scarred face.  
  
She arches her neck and as he trails a line of kisses down to her collarbone, she whispers softly in his ear.  
  
“I’ll be here. You won’t have to do it alone.”  
  
“It’s just so much,” he says, pulling away and gripping the railing once more. “There’s so much that needs to be done.”  
  
“But there’s so much that you can do,” Katara says, folding a hand over his, and together they look out over the balcony at the world of infinite potential spread out before them.


	3. The Shape of Fire (Day 14: Stranger)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "She never quite knows who she will see when she looks into his eyes." Written for Day 14 of Zutara Month 2012: Stranger.

She never quite knows who she will see when she looks into his eyes.  
  
Once, she saw an enemy, a threat, someone who must be defeated and never forgiven. She saw her mother’s killer looking out from his strange golden eyes, saw the destruction of her world in the fire at his fingertips. His was once the face of the enemy.  
  
He is not an enemy any longer; those days ended long ago. She never knows what she will feel when she looks into his eyes, but she knows that she will not feel hatred.  
  
Nor is he a traitor, though once he was that in her eyes as well. She guarded her trust closely after he had won it away so easily that first time, with a brooding look and words that went straight to her heart. _That’s something we have in common._ She vowed never to let herself be betrayed so easily again.  
  
Then he was a friend, and everything changed. _Friend_ is so much more fluid a concept than _enemy_ or _traitor_. There’s more space for confusion, for interpretation, for change. There is room for a perhaps, for an if only, for a wish and a hope and a passing thought. The boundaries are blurred and the borders shift, a glance turns to a gaze turns to a stolen kiss.  
  
He is the unknown, the possibility, the maybe. He is the one to whom her thoughts stray when she forgets to keep them in line. His is the face of her dreams now, where it was once the face of her nightmares. But the dreams themselves are strange, and in waking hours they seem worlds away.  
  
She does not know if he is her friend, or if he is something more. She does not know if she wants him to be.  
  
Then he dons his robes of red and gold, and puts a shimmering golden flame in his hair, and sits behind a curtain of fire, he is someone else entirely. He is the Fire Lord, a regal stranger cloaked in power and tradition. It is only when she looks closely that she sees the flicker of uncertainty in his eyes.  
  
And sometimes, most rarely of all, he is the lost child again, newly scarred and still seeking his father’s love, his mother’s smile. There is a strange sort of sorrow and pain surrounding him at these moments, and it makes her feel oddly helpless. She can comfort the Avatar, can comfort her older brother, can comfort a stranger’s child, but she does not know how to heal Zuko’s wounds, any more than she could heal his scar. All she can do is take him in her arms and let him know he is not alone.  
  
When she looks into his eyes they flicker like the flames, ephemeral and ever-shifting. He is the friend, the Fire Lord, the lost boy, the perhaps. He is her Zuko, he is a stranger. She loves him all the same.


	4. At the Whims of Fate (Day 16: Separate)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Theirs is a story of fragments, of pieces that might have fit together if not for everything that separates them." Written for Day 16 of Zutara Month 2012: Separate.

Theirs is a story of fragments, of pieces that might have fit together if not for everything that separates them.  
  
From time to time their paths collide, first with violence and later with love. Like the stars that fall to earth, like the comet that burns the sky, like the movements of the heavens, destiny draws them close to burn or drown, then wrenches them apart. Again they draw near, again they collide, again they scatter. It is only when, for a short time, they are drawn close without colliding that they blaze bright with all they could have been, all they should be. But the proximity of two such brightly burning stars is a danger to all, and soon they are separated once more, drawn apart to balance the heavens.  
  
Theirs is a story of moments, stolen instants in time.  
  
They have no shared timeline, no long and winding road down which they travel together. Instead they live for the moments, continuing each time from where they last left off, never knowing when they will again be parted. All they know is that the parting will come again, as it always does, as it always will. And so they learn to share their passion in a glance when they cannot share it in greater acts of love, they learn to waste no time. They try to teach themselves not to pine, not to mourn, not to fear the separation they both know is inevitable.  
  
Theirs is a story of opposites, balanced between drawing together and pushing apart.  
  
One is born of ice, the other of fire. Their elements oppose, their elements repel, and yet when they fight it is as beautiful as it is deadly. It is the opposites that keep them apart, a repulsion as deep as the cores of their beings. Yet opposite calls to opposite, and they are drawn inextricably together, even as they are forced apart. As water and fire are opposite, so are hatred and love. The separation may be as wide as an ocean, as fine as the knife’s edge. They are of different worlds, worlds that rarely meet except to destroy. And yet.  
  
Theirs is a story of chance encounters, of shared coincidence.  
  
Sometimes all it takes is something they have in common. They shared a tragedy once, and later they shared a task. On occasion they share a destination, a common goal or perhaps an unexpected meeting. Destiny has separated them, yet destiny has given them parts and pieces to share, to draw them together that they may piece together a story, a past, glimpses of a future. They each know their own destinies, but they live for chance.  
  
Theirs is a story of second chances, of mistakes made and atoned for, of rifts created and later bridged.  
  
Fire and water meet many times as weapons of hate before their wielders learn to use them as instruments of love. Once the two are almost reconciled, but they are driven apart once more before they have a chance to truly understand, and betrayal only deepens the enmity. But destiny and chance, fate and luck, these powers have not stopped playing their games, and the two are brought together again in a dance even the spirits do not often comprehend. Harmony is achieved, but when love fails to result they are given a chance to try again, and then again and again. And finally the two embrace in truth, fire and water intertwining without fighting to consume.  
  
Theirs is a story of multiple farewells, eased only by as many greetings.  
  
They never know how long they must wait to meet again, to hold each other and love each other again. They never know if this is their last good-bye, if the fates have finally cast them apart for good, tiring of their game and moving on to other pieces.  
  
She knows her own destiny, and he knows his. But neither of them knows their shared destiny, if they have one at all.  



	5. Unmasked (Day 20: Demons)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katara asks Zuko about the Blue Spirit. Written for Day 20 of Zutara Month 2012: Demons.

“Why the blue spirit mask?” Katara asked one evening. She had spent the day going through the various stacks and piles of drawings, papers, schedules, and souvenirs that Sokka had kept. Among them was a wanted poster for the Blue Spirit.  
  
“It seemed fitting,” Zuko said with a shrug.  
  
“Why?” The mask looked a bit like some ceremonial masks she had seen in the Water Tribe, back before the men had all gone off to war. But she had been long enough in the Fire Nation to know that it had a different significance here. It was the face of an oni, an evil spirit.  
  
“My whole family is full of demons. An oni seemed a good addition,” he said bitterly.  
  
Katara was quiet, not sure how best to answer that. _Demon_ was indeed a fitting description of Ozai, of Azula, of Sozin. Crazed and dangerous, and certainly evil. She only had to look at Zuko’s scars for evidence of that. Evidence of how, though he may have tried, Zuko would never be like his father or his sister. The oni was only one of the many masks he must have worn.  
  
“Then why blue?” She asked finally, “you could have put on a red oni mask if you wanted. But you didn’t.”  
  
“Because my face is already marked with red,” Zuko said, turning away so she couldn’t see the scarred half of his face. “And…I guess sometimes I didn’t want to be Fire Nation royalty.”  
  
“You are not your father, Zuko,” Katara said softly. “And blue is a good colour on you,” she added lightly. She was rewarded with a small smile.  
  
“It’s odd,” Katara said after several minutes in silence, “in the Southern Water Tribe the men carve masks like that to keep the evil spirits away.”  
  
“I thought they wore wolf masks. Like your father.”  
  
“A lot of them do, especially for war. A wolf is meant to scare away our enemies. But we have other masks too, for festivals and ceremonies, and some of them look a bit like yours. They’re meant to scare away demons and evil spirits.”  
  
“Opposites again, I guess,” said Zuko, but with a smile teasing the corners of his mouth.  
  
“What did you do with the mask, anyway? I’m sure Sokka would want it for his collection, even if you don’t want to keep it.”  
  
“I dropped it in a lake.”  
  
“How appropriate.” She got a true smile that time, before Zuko raised his eyebrow at her.  
  
“Almost as strangely fitting as you masquerading as the Painted Lady?”  



	6. Fold the Night Around Me (Day 22: Forbidden)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peacetime has its own rules, and Zuko and Katara must mask their forbidden love. A series of 100-word drabbles. Written for Day 22 of Zutara Month 2012: Forbidden.

Some days he secretly mourns his life as an exile, when he could go where he liked and do what he wanted, his hair unbound and his face unmasked, his honour his own.  
  
Instead he had fought against imagined chains and bent to artificial rules, caging himself in his quest for something he had never lost.  
  
Young and naïve he had craved his lost throne, but in earning it he lost the desire.  
  
Not for the first time he rewrote his destiny, only to find that in the end he had no choice.  
  
He used to think power meant freedom.

 

*****

_During the war she was a leader, a fighter, a hero. But the war is over, and she’s just a girl again._  
  
She could run away from rules then, or else fight her way through them with daggers of ice. The rules of politics and peactime are more complicated. They twist their way around her, holding her fast.  
  
She went to war for adventure. She fought at first for revenge. In the end she fought for love.  
  
She fought for peace, and was rewarded with rules. She fought for a love now forbidden.  
  
She used to think peace meant freedom.  

 

*****

He may rule the nation, but the nation also rules him.  
  
He suggests the marriage as an alliance, but the sages tell him he must win his own people back first. _You of all people are familiar with mutiny._  
  
He says peace will come with unity, they tell him it is forbidden. _Fire must marry fire._  
  
He says tradition is not law, they do not reply and he knows they have won. It was never truly a contest.  
  
He has the power to make the laws and keep the peace. They have the power to tell him who to love.

 

*****

_The rules have changed, and now so must the game. She paints her face in red and veils herself in mist and shadow. For spirits may walk where mortals are forbidden._  
  
By daylight her face changes; she is the master waterbender, the little girl, the mother, the sister, the friend.  
  
But by night her face is always the same, painted in his colours just as he wears hers, though no one else can know.  
  
Her life has become her costume, and the costume her life as she declares love to one, but walks the silent streets in search of another.  

 

*****

His face is marked by red so he covers it in blue, and at times he forgets which is truly the mask.  
  
As Fire Lord his every word is scripted, his every move choreographed, his life carefully set in order. The Blue Spirit is a demon of chaos, bound by no one’s laws. Least of all his own.  
  
In the darkness red and blue both fade to black, and the lines drawn by politics fall away.  
  
He meets her at the fountain and lifts her veil as she unties his mask.  
  
They meet as spirits, but they love as mortals. 


	7. Landscapes Internal and External (Day 23: Serenity)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In dealing with lost love, Katara learns to control her power over the weather and landscape. A study in pathetic fallacy. Written for Day 23 of Zutara Month 2012: Serenity.

She closes her eyes and tries to focus on nothing but the rhythm of her breathing and the flow of her chi. Slowly the tension eases out of her, and the tumultuous swirl of emotions within her fades to quiet serenity. With a deep breath she opens her eyes, then spreads her arms wide and exhales her calm into the storm around her. The wind still howls, but the storm stops as stillness spreads out across the sea and ice. Waves that only seconds before battered the shore recede, and soon the snow swirls gently to the ground to lie still on the ice, undisturbed by the wind. The waves that only seconds ago battered the shoreline recede until the sea is flat as a mirror, reflecting the calm and serenity within her.  
  
Long ago she ripped an iceberg apart in frustration, and stopped the rain in fury. She learned to bend ice and water with the deadly precision of a master, but only through a surge of emotion could she control the weather, the landscape.  
  
When Zuko came to visit, she hardly noticed at first when the late night tide rose strangely high and the walls of ice wept. During the day, the snow fell as normal and the tides would ebb and flow just as they always did.  
  
By day they played their roles as nothing more than friends. Katara hardly dared even a touch, a glance. She pushed those thoughts away, holding them at bay until nightfall. Only when night came, and just the stars remained to witness, only then could they love each other as they longed to do, with a passion born of too long waiting, too long holding back.  
  
By night they held nothing back, and as restraint dropped away the waves pounded against the storm walls, breaking over the top of the ice, flooding the newly built canals. As fire and water came together, the ice melted and snow fell as rain. Once, lightning split the sky.  
  
It was only when he left, when the sea froze far beyond the ordinary shore as her tears fell to the ice, that she understood.  
  
For days storms raged around the village, though no wind blew. The sea darkened to an angry grey, white-capped waves stretched out as far as she could see. Icebergs were rent apart, glaciers caved into the tumultuous sea, and blizzards covered everything in snow as her rage and despair swept out across the landscape.  
  
She would dream of him then, of his lips hot against hers, of his fingers trailing fire across her bare skin, of acts of love followed by whispered affirmations. And the snows would melt, the waves would cease until morning when she remembered her loss, and the melted snow would freeze once more into treacherous ice.  
  
It was only when Aang sent word of his imminent arrival that she finally sought to calm the storm. Holding the pain and anger at the unfairness of it all at bay by sheer force of will, she tried to turn this to her advantage, to control the immense power that she had released.  
  
She could not bend so much ice and water at once by force, so instead she tried to bring her chi back under control, tried to free it from her emotions, but though the sea began to calm, she felt the storm raging within her instead, tearing her apart. So instead she turned within, and tried to seek peace.  
  
Slowly, over the next several days, the waves calmed and the tides returned to normal. The snows lessened, and Katara’s anger faded. Sadness and longing faded to a dull ache, and the ice receded to the previous shoreline. The world returned to normal, and the wound that his absence had left faded until it was little more than a scar.  
  
Now she looks out over the still water, the gently floating ice, the softly drifting snow. She has brought calm to the landscape, and the sight of it fills her with peace.  



	8. Upon Scorched Earth (Day 26: Holiday)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zuko and Katara establish a Remembrance Day. Written for Day 26 of Zutara Month 2012: Holiday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot take full credit for the poem: I have slightly adapted "In Flanders Fields," the poem associated with Remembrance Day in the UK and Commonwealth

 

 

“We celebrate the end of the war, but we don’t bother to mourn everyone who died,” Zuko says, turning away from the balcony and the fireworks that are set off every year to mark the day the war ended.

“Their families mourn them, and each nation praises those who fought,” says Katara, “they aren’t forgotten.”

“No,” Zuko allows, “but they aren’t remembered, either. They aren’t honoured as they deserve.”

“Not all of them do deserve honour,” Katara replies stubbornly.

Zuko shrugs. “Maybe not. But they fought and they died for their nations. Do you think every soldier from the Fire Nation wanted to fight? I know Ozai was wrong, and Zhao was wrong, but the rest of them were just following orders, fighting for the honour of serving their nation.”

“And they’ve been named,” Katara says, “carved on the torch in the center of the city. Just like the ones in the Water Tribes, carved into the ice walls.”

“It’s not enough,” says Zuko. “All the nations can celebrate the peace together, but when it comes time to mourn our dead, it has to be done in private, quietly. We try to remember the Fire Nation soldiers and civilians who died, and the other nations just throw Ozai’s and Sozin’s crimes at us.”

“And it’s so different for the rest of us? I pray to Tui and La for all the Water Tribe warriors who never came home, and all I get is reminders of the Siege of the North.”

“That’s why we need to remember all of them. Everyone, from all the nations, together.”

“What do you have in mind, exactly?”

Zuko shrugged. “I don’t know. An international day of remembrance, maybe. A monument to everyone who died, not just Fire Nation soldiers’ names carved on a torch.”

“We don’t even know everyone’s names,” Katara points out.

“So we make it a tomb to the unknown soldiers as well.”

“You think the other nations will agree to this?” Katara asks.

Zuko shrugs again. “I don’t know. I guess we’ll find out.”

They write to representatives in each of the nations, with a proposed date for the Remembrance Day, as well as a more detailed plan for how the dead will be honoured. The replies come quickly, all positive. Sokka sends the name of a poem he thinks should be read out at the ceremony.

A tomb is built, carved with no names, but instead the symbols of all four nations and the words We Remember. Aang arrives to represent Air, King Kuei comes from Ba Sing Se to speak for the Earth Kingdom. Hakoda and Arnook agree to allow Katara to serve as the representative of Water.

The four gather in the centre of the city where the marble tomb has been mounted on a pedestal and ringed by candles floating in water. Zuko steps forward first to address the gathered crowd.

“We have come here today to observe the first International Day of Remembrance, to be honoured by all four nations. People from every nation died in the war, and if we can celebrate the peace together, we should also mourn our losses together.” He turns and walks up the steps of the pedestal.

“Today we honour all the fallen. Soldiers and citizens, Earth, Air, Water, and Fire, known and unknown. All who fought or died for their nation,” says Zuko, laying a wreath of fire lilies around the ornate tomb.

“On this day we shall put aside our differences, and past conflicts. We will remember and mourn all those who died, whether they were friend or foe. We shall honour them all as our own.” Katara steps forward and lays a garland of blue winter roses beside the lilies.

“To the fallen,” King Kuei says as he lays a wreath of flowers carved in jade. “We remember.”

“To the fallen,” Aang repeats, laying the final wreath of white alpine flowers. “May their spirits find peace.”

And then Zuko and Katara, the Fire Lord and Lady, step forward together. It was Fire that started the war, and Fire will begin the observance of the Rembrance Day. Katara has worn blue and gold for the occasion, a sign of the peace and acceptance that has grown in the years since the war. She has laid flowers for Water, and will now read with her husband as a representative of Fire.

She and Zuko read the poem out together, and the crowd falls silent to listen.

  
_Upon scorched earth, fire lilies blow_   
_Between the boulders, beneath the snow_   
_They mark our places; and in the sky_   
_The Avatar still dreams of peace, and flies_   
_Scarce heard amid the cries below.  
 _   
_We are the Dead. Short days ago_   
_We lived, felt dawn, saw a comet glow_   
_Loved and were loved, and now we lie,_   
_Upon scorched earth.  
 _   
_Put to rest our quarrel with the foe:_   
_To you from failing hands we throw_   
_The torch; be yours to hold it high._   
_If ye break faith with us who die_   
_We shall not sleep, though fire lilies grow_   
_Upon scorched earth._


	9. Below the Surface (Day 27: Similarity)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seeing Zuko with Katara, Mai realises that she and Zuko were never the same. Written for Day 27 of Zutara Month 2012: Similarity.

Mai used to think they were alike, she and Zuko. As children they both crossed their arms and rolled their eyes at the games Azula and Ty Lee would play. They both preferred playing with steel to playing with fire. They both feared Azula, though neither of them would ever admit it.  
  
When she was younger, that was enough. But then Zuko was exiled and only his sister remained. So she refined her mask and followed Azula, all the while waiting and hoping and wondering about the boy she had so admired, the boy who was so like her. She wondered if he wore a mask of his own, if he hid his face as she hid hers. She threw her knives and imagined his dao blades flashing; the blades he had only ever let her see. Mai waited patiently, never doubting he would return to her.  
  
As the years passed she grew cynical and tired, but her perfectly composed face never changed, her mask never cracked, and no one knew how much she hated the world. _He would know_ , she thought, trying to picture her prince aboard his ship. Zuko would understand. He would hate as she hated, and he would hide it as she did. After all, they were alike.  
  
Then he returned, as she knew he would, and though his face had changed he was still her Zuko. His years in exile had put sadness and anger in his eyes, as her years without him put ice in hers. His scar was plain for all to see, but she had her scars too, hidden away. Though they passed the years apart, she knew they were still the same. He had come back to her, and they could continue as they were meant to.  
  
Of course, she knows now that she was blind, that she was fooling herself all along. She should have seen past the anger to the fire in his eyes, the passion inside him where she had none. She should have known what the years had done to him, what he had seen and endured and survived. Yet she refused to see it, refused to see anything but her Zuko, the boy she had admired and loved.  
  
 _I wasn’t me_ , he said to her just before he left, and the words cut through the mask, through the barriers she had built, and almost broke her. She was nothing like him, she realised then. He had never been like her. He would never have followed Azula blindly all those years, waiting for something that never truly existed. He always had been the one to chase after his destiny. She wondered if it was too late to change hers.  
  
She did try, but it was too late and now, watching him with the Water Tribe girl, she understands. She watches them spar, and though it is fire against water, they move in perfect harmony with each other until it becomes a dance rather than a fight. She sees Zuko smile for Katara the way he never smiled for her. There is passion and expression in him now, when he talks of peace and rebuilding, or tells stories about his uncle.  
  
Mai still crosses her arms and occasionally rolls her eyes as the others laugh and talk and dance and spar. She still throws her knives while the others throw fire and ice, wind and stone. But now she is alone.  
  
She had thought she was like him, but now she sees that the truest similarity is between him and his opposite. Zuko and Katara bend different elements, and fought on opposite sides, but he saved her and she saved him, and she can see that they are more similar than even they know.  
  
When she wishes them happiness, her voice is flat as ever, her face expressionless. Her mask is perfect. Zuko will never see, never know. After all, they are nothing alike.  



	10. Sins of the Father (Day 28: Atonement)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Katara tells him she's pregnant, Zuko is determined not to be the father Ozai was. Written for Day 28 of Zutara Month 2012: Atonement.

In the first year of her marriage he seems to spend more time away than he does with her, negotiating and rebuilding and trying to secure peace. It breaks her heart watching him struggle to meet the eyes of her tribesmen, watching him try to atone for his father’s sins. But she knows there is no other way for him to put the past to rest.  
  
So she waits for him to return to her with ghosts in his eyes that she tries to kiss away, with promises of peace that fill them with renewed hope. She waits patiently, until everything changes and she sends a hawk to call him back to her.  
  
“I’m pregnant,” she says with a smile when he returns. But instead of smiling in return, he falls silent. Tears fill her eyes and she all but runs away, pausing only long enough to choke out a few words.  
  
“I thought you’d be happy.”  
  
It is long past sunset when he finds her. She says nothing as he sits beside her and tries to put an arm around her.  
  
“I’m sorry,” he says. “Katara, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean…I’m sorry.”  
  
She shakes her head. “I just thought you would want this.”  
  
“I do,” he says, and she is surprised to hear his voice thick with emotion, “I do. And I don’t even know what to say. It’s just…”  
  
“Just what?”  
  
“I’m afraid,” he whispers.  
  
It’s the last thing she expects him to say. “Why?” She asks, surprised.  
  
“Because I don’t want to do something I can’t undo. Or something I can’t fix. All the things I’ve done wrong, all the things Ozai did wrong, I’ve tried to put them right. But I don’t want to be like my father,” he says, a fear she has never heard before creeping into his voice.  
  
“Zuko,” she says firmly, “you are not like Ozai.”  
  
He shakes his head. “But I don’t know how to be a father. He’s the only father I had. I know he was wrong, and cruel, but I don’t know how to be any better and I don’t want to…” he reaches up to touch his scar, the way he so often does when he talks about Ozai. “What if I do something that can’t be fixed?” He says in a panicked whisper.  
  
Blinking back the tears that have sprung unexpectedly to her eyes she reaches out to him, lays her hand over his own, cupping his face. Not for the first time, a dark part of her wishes she could kill Ozai slowly, wishes she could make him pay for everything he has done. But she knows not even that would be enough to wipe the haunted look from Zuko’s eyes.  
  
“He was not the only father you had,” she says quietly. “ _Iroh_ is your father.”  
  
“I don’t know if I can be like Iroh.”  
  
“You already are. You threw yourself in front of a lightning bolt, Zuko. That isn’t something Ozai would ever have been able to do. He…” she pauses, knowing her words will hurt, but knowing too that they need to be heard. “He never loved anyone. But you do.”  
  
She pulls him close and kisses him. When she draws away there are tears on her cheeks, but she is not sure if they are his or her own.  
  
*****  
  
When Ursa is born several months later, Katara sees the look of adoration on Zuko’s face, and knows she was right.  



	11. Fall to Fly (Day 30: Gravity)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When love and destiny pull in opposite directions, which way is up? Written for Day 30 of Zutara Month 2012: Gravity.

Neither of them is a stranger to gravity. A lightning bolt, a blast of fire – they both know what it means to fall. Fatigue, despair – they both know how it feels to be pulled down slowly and inexorably. It is what has taught them both to fly.  
  
So, too, are they familiar with destiny. It is not so different from gravity, as it twists itself around them and pulls. Where it leads, few can say, but once set on its path it is as impossible to escape as the fall.  
  
Yet neither of them is a stranger to defying gravity. She soars upwards on a swirling jet of water, and he leaps and flips through the air with a grace that almost matches that of an airbender. They are familiar with the freedom of flight, with looking down and laughing at the ground so far below. She has learned to hope in the face of despair; he has learned determination despite repeated failure.  
  
And they have both formed a bond that seems to defy destiny. With every touch they feel fate’s pull, drawing them away once more. With every kiss, the bond strengthens, pulling them back to each other in a strange dance between opposing systems of gravity.  
  
They are not strangers to falling or to flying, but fate is more subtle than simple gravity. Pulled in so many directions, which is destiny and which is merely desire? If a kiss feels like falling, is it not best to cast it aside? But when losing love feels oddly like despair is it wiser to simply take the leap?  
  
So they cling to opposing cliff faces, holding hands over the chasm that open up below them, and as they are pulled away, they know that either way, at least one of them must fall. Stretched out between destiny and choice, they both forget which is falling and which is flying: grasping a sheer face as it whirls them away, or stepping into the abyss?  
  
She holds his hand, he holds hers, they both cling to their destiny – or is it duty? – for without it they are nothing, but without each other they are lost.  
  
Yet still they are pulled, and it becomes impossible to hold on to both. They must let go – but of what? Can they bear to watch the other be pulled away by the thread of a different destiny, by the gravity of another cruel celestial body? Or do they brave the chasm, the unknown, and relinquish the paths they thought they knew.  
  
Their eyes meet, and the moment seems to stretch out into forever as each reads a decision in the other’s eyes. And then they let go.  



End file.
